[00:00:00] Christine: Have you ever felt like you had a solid plan going into the new year, a new season? You think this is the time I am finally going to focus on the “thing”. I’m going to improve my health. I’m going to focus on my nutrition. I’m finally going to run that race or start that Etsy shop. I’m finally gonna start going to the gym four days a week, whatever the thing that you’re trying to accomplish.

[00:00:32] For the first couple of weeks, you feel really good about the changes that you’re making, the progress you have, and you think to yourself, it’s actually going to stick this time, but then. Life happens. The kids get sick. You get assigned to a big project at work, or your spouse picks up a last minute trip and your newfound routine falls apart.

[00:01:00] And those new habits you were so focused on fail to stick and you start to drift back to doing what you’ve always. To the habits and actions that you know won’t get you where you wanna go. How do we stop this cycle? In today’s episode of the MilSpouse Mastermind Show, I’m gonna walk you through how long it really takes to form or change a habit, why change is so hard, and what you can do to finally see progress in your.

[00:01:37] This year, if you are ready to break the cycle of starting and stopping, creating something new in your life, then let’s get started.

[00:01:53] You, my friend, are made for more, more than the managing of schedules, keeping up with kiddos and holding down the. Welcome to the MilSpouse Mastermind Show. I’m here to help you navigate life as a military spouse, get unstuck and craft a life with purpose. Hi, I’m Christine, a military spouse of over 10 years, mom of littles and coffee connoisseur.

[00:02:16] You have something valuable to offer and when you pursue the things that light your heart on fire, you trade frustration for. An isolation for a life of impact. If you feel stuck waiting for some future season to chase your dreams, then it’s time to discover who you are meant to be, because together we can change the world.

[00:02:40] Hello. Hello friends. Welcome back to the show. I am. Super excited for our conversation today. We are now way deep into the month of January, and if you are someone that goes to the gym a lot, then you probably know the first week of January, everybody is at the gym. Everybody is starting their new workout routines and then the closer and closer you get to the end of the month, the gym starts thinning out again.

[00:03:07] But why does this happen? Because so many of us set intentions. We set new goals. We want to create healthy habits that. , but then life happens. And if we are not committed to our new change, it’s very easy for us to fall back into those habit patterns that are already familiar to us now. . If you are like me, you probably have always heard this adage that it takes about 21 days to form a habit.

[00:03:42] And we think, well, if I can stick with this for three weeks, for 21 days, then it’s obviously going to stick and nothing’s going to get in my wait. But, and yet, for most of us, that’s not what actually happens. It is very easy to revert to. Unhealthy habit patterns or to not sustain the change we just made.

[00:04:10] So where did this idea of 21 days to form a habit actually come from? Some people chased this back to a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz. He wrote a self-help book in 1960, and from my understanding, he basically said that it took his patients about 21 days to adjust to their new look. And somehow that translated to habits and the.

[00:04:43] Stuck now. Since that time, there’s been a lot more research and study done on how we form new habits, how we break habits. How long it takes for people to establish a new habits. In 2010, a UK study on habit formation found that habits form over at least 63 days and some may take even longer. Habit formation is a really big topic, but today I really want to focus on the concept of habits from the perspective.

[00:05:22] our thoughts, and I want to give you an overview of what it takes to form a habit and break the process of changing down in a really easy to understand way. And it’s my goal to help you make 2023 the year you finally start to make the change you want in your life to help you set yourself. For success in your habits this year, even if you feel like you’ve already fallen off the wagon or you’re off to a rocky start.

[00:05:52] I wanna take you back to the concept of mindset and why mindset and our thought life is such a crucial part of habit formation. So first, let’s talk about four things that get in the way of making. a change. Number one is our environment, and you probably know this as well as I do, but everything around us influences us and influences how we behave.

[00:06:23] The second thing to remember is that change is hard. It really goes back to the wiring in our brains and what our brain. Already programmed to do. I want you to think of this as a hike that you’re going on and you get to the trailhead and you can either go along the trail that is already paved, cut out all the branches, all the leaves, everything has been brushed away, so you can walk on the trail, and that is much easier than trying to carve your.

[00:06:58] Path through the forest. So what our brains are programmed to do is to follow the trail. We want to do the things that we are already used to doing that are the easiest thing for us to do. And so when we want to form a new habit, when we want to create some kind of change in our life, we have to carve out a new trail.

[00:07:23] And that’s going to be really difficult at first. and when the going gets hard, when our environment does not support us and our change. It’s so easy for us to go back to the arty, well marked, well paved path. So number one, our environment influences us. Number two, change is just hard. Number three, no one can make us change unless.

[00:07:52] We want to, we have to truly want the change. Other people wanting it for us will not make it happen. We have to want it. And number four, our beliefs. Can trigger failure. If we do not believe lasting change is possible, then it won’t happen because our actions and our habits ultimately go back to our thoughts about the subject.

[00:08:21] Every single thing begins with a thought, and over time those thoughts, they become beliefs and our beliefs determine our actions and our actions form our habits and our. Form our life. So we’re gonna talk about going all the way back to how we begin to change our thoughts in order to change our habits.

[00:08:45] And a lot of what I’m gonna share with you in the next few minutes comes from Dr. Caroline Leaf, who wrote the book, cleaning Up Your. Mess. And so she talks about the importance of being able to manage our mind and go all the way back and identify problematic, toxic thoughts and how we change those thoughts.

[00:09:10] And this is what I found was really interesting in her research, is that it does take around 21 days to build a long-term. But once that thought is formed in our brain, we have to actually make it stick. It has to become an unconscious behavior or an automatized habit. The longer that you stick with something, the more it is.

[00:09:47] It becomes a part of who you are. It is a change at your level of I. And so the what Dr. Leaf teaches is that you spend 21 days forming a new long-term thought for whatever change you want to make, whatever thought you’re trying to change in your brain, but then you need to spend another 42 days of practicing that change in order for it to become a.

[00:10:22] and what we’re really doing here is we’re moving through a four step process, and I’m gonna talk you through five actions that you can take to help you move through each of these four stages. The only way we can change a behavior is when we are aware of it. So we’re going through this four step process.

[00:10:46] Step number one is when we are unconsciously unskilled. At this point, we don’t know what the problem is or what we want to change. We’re not aware of it, so we move from being unconsciously unskilled to consci. Unskilled. This is where we become aware of the problem, aware of what we want to change.

[00:11:13] Because once we are aware of it, then we begin to work on it. We can begin to change the behavior. We can begin to institute what we do want in our life. So we move from becoming unconsciously unskilled to becoming consci. Unskilled to becoming consciously skilled. This is where it’s taking our time, our mental energy, our effort to change the thing, to perform that behavior that we actually want, so we can perform the action with conscious effort.

[00:11:52] But that’s not really a habit. It becomes a habit. When we can perform it without conscious thought, when we can perform the action repeatedly, at this point, that new trail has been blazed. There’s a new pathway that we can perform the action repeatedly without having to consciously think about it. So how do we do that?

[00:12:20] And why are our thoughts such an important part of this process? What we are doing is essentially establishing a new way of thinking, of acting and of being, and whatever we think about the most will grow. So our thoughts are a crucial part of this. So let me very quickly talk to you about how we began this process of habit formation with our.

[00:12:53] Once we’ve identified what we wanna focus on, what we want to change, the first thing we need to do is gain knowledge and awareness. We need to first begin to understand what we currently think about how we currently act in relation to that thing we are working on. , what are our current thoughts in our brain?

[00:13:17] So many times we have all of these thoughts and we’re not even consciously aware that we’re having thoughts that are influencing our behavior. So gaining that awareness and gaining that knowledge of what we’re currently doing and what needs to change, we need to start to gain that knowledge of what actually.

[00:13:37] Needs to change the thought that needs to be recod, that needs to be reframed, or the behavior that needs to be changed. It starts with awareness. The second thing we can do to really affect change is to mentally rehearse the new behavior, the new thought pattern we want in our brain to think about what we want to happen.

[00:14:04] Whatever we think about will grow the third step to helping. Develop a new habit. That last is to take action, to do something. It’s one thing just to think about the change we want to have, but. Our body has to be involved. It’s not just something that takes place in our mind. We physically have to participate in the activity for those new neural pathways to be carved into our brain.

[00:14:38] We have to take action. We have to be able to do something that reinforces the behavior, the change that we’re trying to. The fourth thing that we can do to facilitate this process is to focus on effort, not results. It’s very easy for us to focus on results if you are trying to take back control of your health.

[00:15:07] It’s very easy for us to focus on the number on the scale and to feel good when that number goes down and to feel bad if that number goes. . But what that doesn’t capture is the changes taking place in our brain, the way that our body is forming a habit that lasts. So the most important thing that we can do is focus, not on the result, but on the effort that we are putting in, because we know it takes time to create change That.

[00:15:43] Focus on the actions you are taking, the thoughts you are thinking in your brain, that is where our focus should be. And then the fifth thing to help us develop. A lasting habit to make a habit a part of our lives is to find some type of accountability. If you’re trying to do this on your own, it is so much harder than if you have the support of a friend, of a family member, of a coach, whatever.

[00:16:17] If you get account. Then you’re so much more likely to do the thing you set out to do. If I know somebody’s gonna ask me if I completed a task, I am way more likely to do that thing than if I know nobody else cares if I do that thing. . And then the final thing to remember is just that this is a process that takes time.

[00:16:44] So yes, while it might be a myth that it takes 21 days to form a habit, it is interesting to note that new neural pathways can be formed in the brain in the course of 20. Days, but if we want to make those new pathways last, if we want to establish that new way of thinking, if we want that thought to become automat automatized, it’s going to take continued effort.

[00:17:18] It takes at least another 42. To actually change the structure of your brain in a way that lasts. So your first 21 days are establishing that new thought pattern, and that’s why it’s often the most difficult part of developing a new habit is those first few days and weeks are the most difficult because it’s something that is completely new.

[00:17:51] But the more that you do it, the more that you think in a new way. The more that you reconceptualize your thoughts, the more that you mentally rehearse, the more that you act in. Accordance with the way that you want to be, the behavior you want to establish, the easier it becomes over time and over days and weeks and months, it forms this new pattern, this new way that becomes so much easier.

[00:18:24] You have that new trail blazed, you’re not having to carve a brand new path through the jungle. You have it, and the more that you follow that new path, the more that trail becomes worn and becomes your new normal showing up. The way that you want to be becomes so much easier over time, and so as we are here in mid to late January, the year may have not gotten off to the start that you want.

[00:18:56] I want you to know that it is so, so important that you understand this big picture, that it’s not just about doing something for 21 days. It’s about establishing a habit pattern, a thought pattern that you want for the long term that aligns with who you want to be. Because the hardest thing to do is to start something new and to give it up.

[00:19:21] before it’s become the habit that you want, and then you feel like you’re starting all over again, and the more that you feel like you keep starting over. Well, number one, it’s disheartening, and number two, it creates these negative feedback loops, which is more that your thoughts have to re reconceptualize.

[00:19:41] You’re not only trying to learn how to do the thing you’re trying to say, okay, I have this self-defeating thought about why I. Overcome why I can’t do this thing that you also have to work through. So if you are in that situation, please give yourself plenty of grace because we all have lots of things that happen to us and we all make mistakes.

[00:20:07] None of us. Show up as the people we wanna be a hundred percent of the time. We are human. And that is just a part of being human. But it is possible to begin to carve out new patterns in our brains, patterns that align with. Who we want to be and how we want to show up. So I hope that this encourages you and reminds you that change is possible.

[00:20:39] And yes it is. It is always the most difficult in the beginning, but if you can stick with it, it takes more than 21 days. But it is absolutely possible for each and every one of. now, if you have not yet figured out what you want your focus to be this year, what you want to work on, how you want to grow in 2023, then I would highly recommend that you go grab the replay of the plan, your 2023 workshop where we talk about how to identify what you.

[00:21:17] Your focus to be what you want your growth goals to be for the year and how you actually begin to make positive change in your life. And that is what we are here for, to help you get unstuck in craft a life with purpose. Because I know that a fulfilling life, one that is not. Full of frustration, but one where you feel like you have a sense of meaning and purpose in your life.

[00:21:44] All right, friends, I can’t wait to hear what habits you are working on this year. Come pop in our Facebook group. Let me know what’s going on in your life, what you are focused on for the year. I will see you in there. Until next time, may you. Filled, fueled, and full of joy.